Bits Bucket for April 13, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
November 2024 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
This is what the recoveryless recovery looks like.
Wall Street Journal - Consumers Show Fresh Caution
“Americans in recent weeks have cut spending on everything from dining out to electronics to cars, suggesting a renewed skepticism in the economy after a resilient start to the year.
The question now: Is the consumer pullback a stutter or something more serious?”
(they aren’t spending because they don’t have any money)
“Some retailers say the recent drop in spending is likely a blip, with consumers eventually adjusting to the smaller paychecks that stem from the January payroll tax increase and resuming springtime purchases.”
A “blip”? Just like the 10% drop in median incomes in the last decade was a blip. Oops, except that it’s not. The future belongs to Lucky Ducky!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323741004578418370151050516.html
“January payroll tax increase” really means “January payroll tax reset”
The payroll tax was cut and now it has been reset. People got used to the cut and adjusted their spending as if the cut would last forever. But it didn’t last forever so now they have to cut their spending back to where it was before the cut.
Or maybe back to less than what it was before the cut. People’s increased spending after the cut financed higher prices, and now the higher prices that rose because they were financed by the cut are stranded.
I read an article the other day about a state (Oregon) cutting retirement benefits for retired state employees.
More money going poof.
The middle class get’s poorer and poorer. Small businesses see rising or stable input costs (due to FED printing and speculation) and falling demand due to poorer customers. The spiral continues.
“Americans in recent weeks have cut spending on everything from dining out to electronics to cars, suggesting a renewed skepticism in the economy after a resilient start to the year.”
Been in San Jose, CA for the past week, and there is no sign of a recession here. If anything one could easily suggest that economic activity has likely increased over the previous year, and my cursory guess is the rising stock market. There have been waiting lines to be seated everywhere I’ve been to eat with friends and family, both breakfast and dinner this past week. Parking lots here a jammed with new cars, big cars too, no economy class unless it belongs to the dish washers. Several friends said homes sales here are mostly cash deals. It all seems so unfair when one glances at the economic news from around the country.
Same thing I see in Baltimore and Washington. Fast sales, HD full evenings and weekends, impossible to park in nice areas of town (lots of new cars), waits at any decent restaurant. The nice areas are doing better than ever, the rough areas of town are just as rough as ever
I was surprised that I didn’t see more nice cars there, considering how much money seems to be floating around. I saw a ton of entry level luxury, but no more of the good stuff than I see in Boulder. I was thinking maybe most of that money is going into housing.
I think you are right. Also, perhaps now that foreclosures are happening others have to pay rent now and don’t have as much money for cars .
Silly boy! Rent is half the cost of owning.
You’re correct.
What did you pay /sq foot?
If you’re talking about DC, it’s all about appearances. We have a sales guy up there who earned >1M last year; he drives a 10 year old Honda Accord to meet with customers. Has a 2012 SL Mercedes parked at his house.
Those making big bucks in DC have to be somewhat “sly” about it. Most of the people who actually work for the government make peanuts. The contractors and sales folks that surround the government make big to huge bucks. And, as they all work together on the same projects, it’s very important to keep up appearances. Same thing when you’re selling to the SLED (state, local, education) market, we always make sure to take the “least nice” car when we go visit those customers. The commissions on the deals that the sales folks are selling into those markets are often more than the employees will make in a year.
And, then, of course, you have some idiots. Like our VMware rep. An attractive women who always drives her MB ML550 to every client and walks in totally decked out in LV and Gucci. Even has a Montblanc pen that she hands out to sign the contracts. Her outfits often cost more than the folks sitting across the room will make in a year. Very bad taste, but she’s cute and has had many “enhancements” so, I guess people just overlook it.
I was talking about San Jose, where I just got back from.
Most consultants where I work in Los Angeles drive old economy cars. The direct hires seem to think they have to impress. The young dumpy guys do it. And talk loudly about their vacations. I talk loudly about just passing the ten year anniversary of my Toyota economy car. It’s a defense mechanism because there always are a few directs who hate consultants, as if we should all be gassed by Hitler’s goons.
“I was talking about San Jose, where I just got back from.”
I’m visiting family in Willow Glen and around the Almaden Valley; a least a third of these people don’t have to work, IMHO. The big homes and multiple cars could never be maintained with wages. Friends in Los Gatos have similar well-off neighbors too.
We drove north up the 680 and 780 to Napa to visit family and have a outdoor patio style lunch along the edge of the Napa river. Nice warm sunlight and lots of eye-candy in flimsy summer dresses. Roughly $30/plate for lunch, and I was still hungry when we left; trendy. Returned down the 101 thru San Francisco and down the 280 to San Jose. Got a Sunday morning flight back to Seattle and Wenatchee, and a 20% chance of rain/snow.
Where did you go Carl? If you drive around the mid-peninsula (Los Altos, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton), you’ll see more nicer cars than closer to San Jose.
Then again, I’m probably the wrong guy to ask about nice cars. My wife drove around an 10+ year old Nissan (no power steering, etc.) for 4 years after becoming an attorney–drove it until the next major repair was more expensive than the car.
We are definitely “underconsuming” cars in our household. I find that in So Cal, there is a higher density of nicer cars than in No Cal. I think it may be a culture thing…
I find that in So Cal, there is a higher density of nicer cars than in No Cal. I think it may be a culture thing…
I agree. And since it was my first time in northern California, I guess I was expecting to see cars similar to what I’d see in southern California.
I went all over the place. I worked in San Jose all week but spent several evenings back and forth between there and San Francisco and Monterey.
There are only two ways to adjust to less disposable income: spend less or take on more debt. Sounds like “spend less” is winning.
UK Guardian - News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming it altogether
Out of the 10,000 news stories you may have read in the last 12 months, did even one allow you to make a better decision about a serious matter in your life
“In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don’t really concern our lives and don’t require thinking. That’s why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the mind. Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognise how toxic news can be.
News is irrelevant. Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that – because you consumed it – allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career or your business. The point is: the consumption of news is irrelevant to you. But people find it very difficult to recognise what’s relevant. It’s much easier to recognise what’s new. The relevant versus the new is the fundamental battle of the current age. Media organisations want you to believe that news offers you some sort of a competitive advantage. Many fall for that. We get anxious when we’re cut off from the flow of news. In reality, news consumption is a competitive disadvantage. The less news you consume, the bigger the advantage you have.
News is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli
Tl; DR
no news is good news.
Hysterical language and overblown rhetoric is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky verbiage spurs the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words,the language you use and hear puts your body… in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation.”
Psychological warfare at its finest.
Now spread that across all forms of mass media and, well, here we are.
Washington Post - Hot housing markets revive techniques that marked the bubble of a decade ago
“They’re back after barely a decade: Escalation clauses in real estate contracts; “naked,” contingency-free offers; and listings with low-ball prices designed to pull in dozens of bidders and turn routine sales transactions into auctions.
These are all techniques last seen with frequency during the frothiest months of the housing bubble in 2004-05, when prices were rising at double-digit rates, buyers thought they couldn’t lose money in real estate and mortgage financing was available to anybody who could sign a loan application. Now they are reappearing in some of the hottest sellers’ markets from coast to coast, the byproduct of severe shortages in houses listed for sale combined with strong demand by qualified purchasers.
Buyers, meanwhile, are out in droves, scanning newspapers and online realty sites for the latest listings and signing up for alert services provided by realty firms. In the San Francisco Bay area, for example, agents say that realistically priced new listings are attracting dozens — sometimes even hundreds — of shoppers to open houses and stimulating bidding competitions with 30 to 50 or more participants.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/hot-housing-markets-revive-techniques-that-marked-the-bubble-of-a-decade-ago/2013/04/10/8565827c-a078-11e2-9c03-6952ff305f35_story.html
Never a story about how those prices were the result of more than just mania, but also a lot of fraud. Fraudulent appraisals, lies on mortgage apps, and all the rest. But we’re going to return to the good old days of the spiked punch bowl!
New York Times - Signs of Easier Money for Mortgages
there is no economy. the bubble IS the economy
“In the years after the housing bubble burst, borrowers had to practically promise their firstborn child to secure a mortgage.
And while the requirements are still pretty rigorous, particularly for those with less than perfect credit, there are signs that at least some regional lenders and mortgage insurers are beginning to ease up. Some regional banks and credit unions are even offering products that vaguely resemble the more aggressive financing that became all too common during the boom days and eventually got many borrowers into trouble.
The piggyback loan, for instance, is back, mortgage lenders and brokers said. That is when borrowers take out two mortgages simultaneously (or a mortgage and a line of credit) so they can avoid the private mortgage insurance required on traditional mortgages for more than 80 percent of the home’s value.
And some credit unions, including Navy Federal and NASA Federal Credit Union, are offering 100 percent financing, at least in markets where home values have stabilized and appear to be on the upswing. U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo said they still allowed borrowers to use piggyback loans.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/13/your-money/signs-of-easier-money-for-mortgages.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
“In the years after the housing bubble burst, borrowers had to practically promise their firstborn child to secure a mortgage.”
Like nails on a chalkboard. This is simple NOT TRUE. We bought a house about 2 years ago, and the process was totally routine and not all at “invasive”. 2 years W2, bank/brokerage statements, source of downpayment and verification of employment. Exactly what you’d expect for someone getting ready to hand over 100’s of thousands of dollars to someone they’d never met. We re-fi’ed a few months ago and had exactly the same experience. Certainly not invasive, and got a 30 year fixed MTG at 3.5%. How is God’s green earth is that “tight” credit?!?
This “the credit market is tight” BS is just total poppycock. It’s not “insane” like it was when strawberry pickers were getting loans for 1M dollars. But, if you have verifiable income and a decent credit score, this probably the best market in ALL OF RECORDED HISTORY to get a loan. Rates have never been lower, loans are almost instantly available and the fees are very low.
The only way this credit looks “tight” is if your entire experience in the market was from ~2001-2006. People need to get some perspective!
I tend to agree. However, where I’ve seen over-rigidity is with people who don’t have W-2s (and either make their money from investment returns, or own a business). One person I know had to go to multiple banks with a bank statement showing a multiple of the cash he wanted to borrow…finally one lent to him.
New York Times - Fewer Home Loans Start to Affect Banks
was it ever about anything but the banks?
“The nation’s biggest banks, capitalizing on government efforts to bolster the housing market, have raked in handsome mortgage profits of late. On Friday, that started to change.
Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest home lender, disclosed that it originated fewer home loans and recorded lower mortgage banking income in the first quarter of 2013. JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank by assets, reported limited appetite for new mortgages and a drop in mortgage banking income.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the banks’ mortgage business had hinged on government intervention rather than fresh demand from consumers. When the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in recent years, it spurred millions of borrowers to refinance their home loans to reduce costs.
Now, as mortgage rates inch upward from their lows late last year and refinancing enthusiasm wanes, the pipeline of borrowers is drying up.
“You need a next level of people that are willing to buy and that simply isn’t there,” said J. J. Kinahan, a strategist at TD Ameritrade.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/fewer-home-loans-start-to-affect-banks/
And remember….. mortgage finance is/was the most lucrative legal venture in world history. Think about it. I get to charge you 2.5x my cost for an item that you think you must have. And you own all the risk and depreciation and you are convinced it’s a bargain.
Housing finance is the biggest rip-off on the public in world history.
Nope, that would be medicine.
Housing is second.
Automobiles are third.
For more than a century, ideological extremists, at either end of the political spectrum, have seized upon well-publicized incidents, such as my encounter with Castro, to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal, working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists,’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.
David Rockefeller, in Memoirs (2002).
Is that the senator from w va?
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
–Rahm Emanuel
Putting parents of the victim children of a psycho on meds who stole the guns used in his crimes on Air Force One and parading them around capital hill to achieve your political ends.
– A ghoul with no shame
Your obsessive fascination with Obama is boundless.
And your obsessive belief that Obama can do no wrong is just as boundless.
Evidence?
No?
Thought so.
Just read your old posts. Who you voted and who will you vote again is an evidence in itself.
I voted for Gary Johnson in 2012.
Next…
Introducing our new strawman, Mr. debt pusher’s kryptonite!
Ah, you should call yourself PeakIdiocy.
The obsession is with who is president and the large influence (in Obama’s case mostly bad influence*) he has over everyone’s life.
*There is an exception. I could not believe the article in the NYT the other day that Obama is actually proposing cuts in future social security benefits. Maybe there really is hope and change. Imagine if we could get rid of or at least reform that Ponzi scheme.
My grandfather, who was around in 1935 when the F.I.C.A. was passed, would roll over in his grave to say, “I told you so.”
There’s another cheery news from the dear reader.
Mark Zandi is in pole position to be appointed as the new FHFA director. Honestly, is Obama truly an idiot? I know the answer. Please confirm.
“I told you so.”
What did he tell you?
“Mark Zandi is in pole position to be appointed as the new FHFA director.”
LMFAO…but somehow it makes perfectly good sense. He is, after all, the consummate cheerleader for the credit bubble…
Short-sellers can’tget new loans… lotta good comments.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/short-sellers-sidelined-for-new-home-loans-by-credit-reporting-quirk/2114917
And the whole premise of the article is wrong anyway. Short sellers can get new loans. I think they even have a term for it, boomerang buyers. There’s plenty where I’m at.
Variant: If the American people knew the corruption in our money system there would be revolution before morning.
Attributed to Henry Ford by Charles Binderup (March 19, 1937), Congressional Record—House 81:2528. The quote is preceded by “It was Henry Ford who said, in substance, this”, which indicates that this is likely just a paraphrase, not an exact quote.
But Ford was a nazi and paid his workers peanuts, so how can he be right?
Was he a nazi or just an antiwar?
Maybe he was a Nazi I don’t know. I’m trying to find out who or what is behind the propoganda that is served up on the nightly news and sold as if it really happened.
Labor philosophy
The five-dollar workday
Ford was a pioneer of “welfare capitalism”, designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring 300 men per year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers.[20]
Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 per day wage ($110 today), which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers.[21] A Cleveland, Ohio newspaper editorialized that the announcement “shot like a blinding rocket through the dark clouds of the present industrial depression.”[22] The move proved extremely profitable; instead of constant turnover of employees, the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to Ford, bringing their human capital and expertise, raising productivity, and lowering training costs.[23][24] Ford announced his $5-per-day program on January 5, 1914, raising the minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for qualifying workers. It also set a new, reduced workweek, although the details vary in different accounts. Ford and Crowther in 1922 described it as six 8-hour days, giving a 48-hour week,[25] while in 1926 they described it as five 8-hour days, giving a 40-hour week.[26] (Apparently the program started with Saturdays as workdays and sometime later it was changed to a day off.)
Detroit was already a high-wage city, but competitors were forced to raise wages or lose their best workers.[27] Ford’s policy proved, however, that paying people more would enable Ford workers to afford the cars they were producing and be good for the economy. Ford explained the policy as profit-sharing rather than wages.[28] It may have been Couzens who convinced Ford to adopt the $5 day.[29]
The profit-sharing was offered to employees who had worked at the company for six months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford’s “Social Department” approved. They frowned on heavy drinking, gambling, and what might today be called “deadbeat dads”. The Social Department used 50 investigators, plus support staff, to maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for this “profit-sharing.”
Labor unions
Ford was adamantly against labor unions. He explained his views on unions in Chapter 18 of My Life and Work.[31] He thought they were too heavily influenced by some leaders who, despite their ostensible good motives, would end up doing more harm than good for workers. Most wanted to restrict productivity as a means to foster employment, but Ford saw this as self-defeating because, in his view, productivity was necessary for any economic prosperity to exist.
five dollars in 1914 equivalent to 110 today?
thanks, federal reserve.
five dollars in 1914 equivalent to 110 today?
I think it is worse than that, actually.
http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html
The calculator says $116.
Yeah, but it was considered a crazy great wage at the time. If it’s $116 now, then we’d be thinking $30,000 a year was a crazy great wage, as opposed to a lucky ducky wage.
The Fed could argue it’s working just fine, at least on that count.
100 years of no progress is good? Moreover, it is when we completely got off the gold standard in 1971 when the real problems began.
$30,000 a year (in our dollars) was considered an amazingly good wage then. Now it’s considered a lucky ducky wage. Sounds like wages have outpaced inflation during that period, which is all that really matters, no?
Go back to paying ALL your taxes in cash on April 15th
Have elections on April 17th.
We would have a balanced budget in no time.
51% don’t pay taxes. April 15th or Christmas day it makes no difference. Keep hoping for a R party victory.
May be Obama was right. The whole hope thing was meant for the republicans. They will keep on hoping for a republican victory.
51% don’t pay taxes.
Nope. Nearly everyone who buys anything pays sales taxes, gasoline taxes, etc. Perhaps you meant ‘federal income tax’, but that wasn’t your point, was it?
You must be a dullard. Who pays sales taxes on april 15th?
I think it’s obvious who the dullard is.
Who pays sales taxes on april 15th?
Anyone who buys something?
The people must be helped to think naturally about money. They must be told what it is, and what makes it money, and what are the possible tricks of the present system which put nations and peoples under control of the few.
Henry Ford, My Life and Work, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1922, p. 179
If people acted that way, how would the debt pushers react?
U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion
News • Treasure • ISSUE 46•07 • Feb 16, 2010
WASHINGTON—The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct.
Calling it “basically no more than five rectangular strips of paper,” Fed chairman Ben Bernanke illustrates how much “$200″ is actually worth.
What began as a routine report before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday ended with Bernanke passionately disavowing the entire concept of currency, and negating in an instant the very foundation of the world’s largest economy.
“Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we…if we…” said Bernanke, who then paused for a moment, looked down at his prepared statement, and shook his head in utter disbelief. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. None of this—this so-called ‘money’—really matters at all.”
“It’s just an illusion,” a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. “Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless.”
According to witnesses, Finance Committee members sat in thunderstruck silence for several moments until Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) finally shouted out, “Oh my God, he’s right. It’s all a mirage. All of it—the money, our whole economy—it’s all a lie!”
Screams then filled the Senate Chamber as lawmakers and members of the press ran for the exits, leaving in their wake aisles littered with the remains of torn currency.
U.S. markets closed as traders left their jobs and resolved for once to do or make something, anything of real value.
As news of the nation’s collectively held delusion spread, the economy ground to a halt, with dumbfounded citizens everywhere walking out on their jobs as they contemplated the little green drawings of buildings and dead white men they once used to measure their adequacy and importance as human beings.
At the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday morning’s opening bell echoed across a silent floor as the few traders who arrived for work out of habit looked up blankly at the meaningless scrolling numbers on the flashing screens above.
“I’ve spent 25 years in this room yelling ‘Buy, buy! Sell, sell!’ and for what?” longtime trader Michael Palermo said. “All I’ve done is move arbitrary designations of wealth from one column to another, wasting my life chasing this unattainable hallucination of wealth.”
“What a cruel cosmic joke,” he added. “I’m going home to hug my daughter.”
…
The really funny aspect of this Onion piece is that some parts actually came to pass!
He was hardly the first to note this. Does n’t the bible talk about the borrowing being the slave of the lender or works to that effect?
works = words
Yup. Not a new idea:
Proverbs 22:7, New International Version (NIV)
7 The rich rule over the poor,
and the borrower is slave to the lender.
I put a Bible to my ear once. I did not hear it talking.
The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control… Do I mean conspiracy? Yes, I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.
Congressman Larry MacDonald, killed in the Korean Airlines 747 that was shot down by the Soviets. Introduction to The Rockefeller File (1976) by Gary Allen
I think I’ll stop now.
“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies”
Here’s the thing: While it is true that a cabal of sorts does exist, all of these allies (such as the Rothschilds) also have their own agendas and they’re never quite been able to agree on certain matters. Also, there’s no honor among thieves, and these folks know it, so they’re always intriguing against each other. It might be the only thing that saves the planet from the boot stamping on the faces of the population.
Speaking of population, it’s been bandied about that the Rockefellers have long had a desire and plan to depopulate the planet. How’s that working out for them? (Although I do note the recent outbreak of SARS in Red China, interesting)
“Speaking of population”
I love the Stones, still doin’ it after all these years.
Georgia Guidestones
A message consisting of a set of ten guidelines or principles is engraved on the Georgia Guidestones in eight different languages, one language on each face of the four large upright stones. Moving clockwise around the structure from due north, these languages are: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Russian.
1.Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2.Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
3.Unite humanity with a living new language.
4.Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
5.Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6.Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7.Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8.Balance personal rights with social duties.
9.Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
10.Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure these conspiriturds don’t ascribe to the Guidestone philosophy.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure these conspiriturds don’t ascribe to the Guidestone philosophy.”
Taking on ICLEI at a City Council Meeting in San Carlos … - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su7i4cH7eYo - 215k - Cached - Similar pages
Jan 31, 2012 …
500,000,000
Will you make the cut?
“Will you make the cut?”
I’m out.
No french? Do the French know yet?
Hollande may send some troops…
Add there aint no such thing as a free lunch.
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000
You first. All the rest of you.
Thieves? No end to vilifying those richer than most people. The proportion of law abiding people and non law abiding people are most likely distributed evenly among all classes. Though a difference no doubt exists in initiative and industriousness and thriftiness and planning and all other traits necessary to build and accumulate wealth.
Not to mention the inherited means to provide the foundation for building wealth.
There has never been a better time to be a trust fund baby!
“The proportion of law abiding people and non law abiding people are most likely distributed evenly among all classes.”
It’s easy to be law abiding when you have enough money to buy your own laws.
Joe Smith to the rescue.
Vilify?
Perhaps you should google “corporate/financial/mortgage/pension/stock fraud” and get back to us.
That is, if your short term memory can remember to so.
Congressman Larry MacDonald, killed in the Korean Airlines 747 that was shot down by the Soviets. Introduction to The Rockefeller File (1976) by Gary Allen
I think I’ll stop now.
You shouldn’t have stopped before you got the rest of the interesting story out. Sounds like being a cheapskate was his undoing:
Or did the illuminati shoot him down?
Do you want me to read the card?
I saw a news clip last night featuring John Kerry in South Korea and it struck me how much he resembles an owl. Never noticed that before.
Owl is the #1 look preferred by rich white women.
Make that extremely rich white women.
Kerry and Leno hmmm mom was being busy.
the attendees at bohemian grove worship a giant owl statue.
I think he more strongly resembles “Lurch” of the Addams Family.
He also looks like Lincoln. And that’s not a compliment.
Oooops, that one slipped.
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, letter to Col. Edward Mandell House (21 November 1933).
how much longer will it take for the economy to be able to support itself without printed cash? Been 5 years now and still 110 million people not working. I’m not seeing any jobs around here.
2 years 4 month and 11 days.
99 years and 99 days.
The staffing company I work for has quarterly polls of companies on hiring. The latest poll results show a spike in the software job openings are going to happen this quarter. I have followed the company polls since the mid 2000s and they’ve been generally right.
First two foreclosure in my neighborhood.
1. Family there for eight years and purchased house for $365,000. Father worked for an investment bank. Quit his job to day trade and to run a car wash that he purchased. (like huh?). The wife designed and sold high end ipad leather covers. They probably put in about $40,000 of improvements (that made no sense) over the years into the house.
They suddenly moved out one day. The house went into foreclosure for a few months and then sold at a short sale for $400,000. House was in good shape when sold.
2. Family inherited an almost paid-off house. Lived there for 10 years and then got divorced. Never really took care of the place but the husband always had toys in the driveway (ATVs, muscle cars, etc.). Everyone moved out. About a month later things started to disappear (shed, wooden fence, kitchen stuff, etc.). The yard and house are trashed. Sold at a short sale auction a few months ago to a developer. No clean up yet.
Total democrat/liberal control + insane public unions + higher and higher taxes + bigger and bigger government = People fleeing some of the most beautiful and productive land in the world.
But lets do this stuff on a national scale - it is the way to prosperity!
———————————
As Jerry Brown Touts California In China, Its Citizens Pack Their Bags
Forbes | 04/12/2013 | David Davenport
While Governor Jerry Brown is in China touting the state’s rebound and recovery, many Californians are busy packing their bags for a move to Texas, Nevada or Arizona. Why? Because it appears that the once-Golden State may finally be overpriced, underperforming and ungovernable.
Is it possible that one state has managed to top every 50-state category on the following shameful list?
Highest taxes (gasoline, sales and top bracket of income taxes)
Lowest bond rating
Highest poverty rate (at 23.5%, the home of 1/3 of those in poverty in U.S.)
Highest unemployment rate (tied with Mississippi and Nevada at 9.6%)
Highest energy costs
Worst state to do business (as judged by Chief Executive magazine 8 years running)
Most cities going bankrupt
Prison system so poorly run it has been taken over by a federal judge
Although there is argument about this, there shouldn’t be: people are leaving the state. The data shows that there has been a net out-migration from California to other states since 1990, balanced for awhile by immigration from other countries.
But by 2005 that had eroded, too, with birth rates in the state also dropping at an incredible rate. Over the past two decades, a net 3.4 million people have left the state. And this is before the 2013 increase in income tax rates which prompted even liberal TV talker Bill Maher to complain that “it’s outrageous what we (millionaires) are paying” in taxes, “over 50%,” warning “liberals, you could actually lose me.”
Don’t let the date on this article fool you: I think the writer is serious.
Politics
Paul Krugman Thinks California’s Economy is Doing Just Fine
By Reason Foundation, Mon, April 01, 2013
Does the air on Planet Krugman have higher levels of nitrous oxide than Earth’s? I always find myself trying to hold back giggles reading Paul Krugman’s columns. When last I touched on him, Krugman was weirdly blaming Hostess’ failure on the decline of union power and influence, even though union power most assuredly contributed to the company’s downfall.
Now, Krugman wants to tell us what we can learn from California’s comeback. Yes, he has bought into that narrative, while at the same time accusing the rest of us of buying into a narrative that the state is going to hell:
Well, I’m sure there’s some other explanation for the map below, showing the extent of migration from California to other states that have lower taxes. The migration figures from the census end at 2000 (the blue arrows). The state’s population was the same by the end of 2010, though, and failed to gain any new Congressional representation:
…
The national policy under Bush followed the Texas model under Obama it is the CA and Illinois model and some people wonder why things are not going well on the national level?
You don’t seem to understand that the US is completely different than cyprus texas california etc because it can print money and lend in it’s own currency.
Totally true—and true of every country with a sovereign currency, right up until the day that they can no longer borrow money in their own currency.
As long as they continue to print, I will cause five clnks per month to fall in my coin bottle. “Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink!” 1/4 oz eagles.
If price goes under $1400 per ounce, it will become six clinks!
Fine to be home this weekend in my red state of Arizona. I just hope California “progressives” (actually regressives) move to Vegas and stay out of Arizona.
Today I was all over the valley half the time. Met with my financial advisers in the Arcadia district, bought a modest amount of 5.56 ammo in North Phoenix, ate vegan style at Whole Foods in PV on Tatum.
People were enjoying the cool mornings while they are left! Lots of joggers and cyclists in the East Valley where I was this morning. Now I am back in the Ahwatukee area with my second cup of Peets.
I am on an ammo mission every weekend. I thumb my nose at the Demopublicans who are bent on infringing my right to bear arms. I bear them regardless. If they come for my guns they will get lead.
What’s really going on in California
California imposed a new law on banks innocuously called “Homeowners Bill of Rights” which forces banks to switch over to a judicial foreclosure process, which they can opt to do on their own, but takes a year or more to renegotiate contracts and compensation structures for the foreclosure law firms who do all the leg work for the banks. And while those changes are being made… it makes it appear that foreclosures have slowed down dramatically in the state.
The reality?
Defaults (undeclared) are spiraling upward that yet have to pass through the foreclosure pipeline.
The truth?
California is still the highest foreclosure state in sheer volume and percentage.
The low-down?
Resale housing is still massively overpriced as a result of unprecedented interference by individual states and the federal government. The market distortions will be removed and the down draft will continue allowing the market to correct.
With millions of excess empty houses and housing demand at 17 year lows, housing prices have a long way to fall. A very long way to fall.
Housing has to appreciate in an economy that produces no jobs.
Depreciating assets never “appreciate”. Ever.
home prices are booming in desirable areas.
Name one.
san diego sir. why dont you quit you rhetoric on this blog please?
YOU are LIAR
Does this ten year chart of sales transactions in San Diego appear to be booming?
http://picpaste.com/pics/san_diego-f3NJgbvZ.1365874040.png
I have a bulletin for you. You’re on the radar.
Wow — San Diego homes are selling more slowly now than they sold in 2009, right after an epic financial collapse.
Looks like there is still a ways to go before this bubble is fully whacked!
“why dont you quit you rhetoric on this blog please?”
My soft and steamy little butterbun
would do better to skip the middleman and simply quit the blog.
DC Debt-Junkie,
What did you pay in $/sq ft?
“Does this ten year chart of sales transactions in San Diego appear to be booming?”
He was talking about price, not sales volume.
“He was talking about price, not sales volume.”
And if you ever survived an undergraduate economics course for more than two weeks, you would have met up with a demand curve, which immediately shows that price and sales volume are inseparable. Once demand has collapsed, the only way to get high prices is to squeeze for-sale inventory so tight that transactions slow to a trickle — about where we are these days in San Diego, in fact.
I can always tell when I am arguing with a Realtor™ as none of them seem ever to have taken undergraduate economics. Especially the so-called NAR economists…
“the only way to get high prices is to squeeze for-sale inventory so tight that transactions slow to a trickle — about where we are these days in San Diego,”
No one was ever arguing anything different. Prices are “booming” in certain areas because inventory is being withheld. If inventory is withheld, of course volume will be lower, and prices can rise more than they should. I mean, you told azdude to name one place where prices are booming. He did, and you linked to a sales volume chart to counter. You can argue you want about prices being tied to sales volume long-term, that doesn’t make it so right now.
“Prices are “booming””
Where? WHERE?
“Where? WHERE?”
Phoenix?
Phoenix is marginally higher MoM. Somewhere around 1%. In other words, the moment has slowed to near zero which suggest prices are reversing.
Phoenix is marginally higher MoM
And it’s up 30% year-over-year, according to the Zillow chart you posted.
Why do you keep building houses that nobody needs?
Debt-Boaster,
Why do you presume they only way to earn profit in contracting is building depreciating houses?
“takes a year or more to renegotiate contracts and compensation structures for the foreclosure law firms who do all the leg work for the banks.”
My wife (an attorney) laughed her ass off when I showed her this.
““Homeowners Bill of Rights” which forces banks to switch over to a judicial foreclosure process”
And this is also false. CA lenders still are filing non-judicially. Per Foreclosure Radar, after a drop from December to January, filings went up in February, and up again in March.
“California is still the highest foreclosure state in sheer volume and percentage.”
Not according to RealtyTrac.
In case you missed the memo, gold is struggling mightily as of late to maintain its reputation as a superior store of value to dollars. My wife reminded me that it wasn’t all that long ago that gold sold in the range of $300-$400 an ounce. What exactly justifies its stratospheric recent value around
$1600$1476 an ounce?Try not to catch yourself a falling knife.
Gold enters technical bear market after Friday drop
April 12, 2013, 4:30 PM
Gold‘s price plunge Friday meant that the battered commodity is in a bear market, a technical status that could lead to more selling.
Gold (GCM3 -5.53%) lost a whopping $63.50, or about 4%, to settle at $1,501.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the lowest close since July 2011.
The standard for a bear market is a 20% drop from the peak. Based on that, gold’s already there, said Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter. Prices settled at a record $1,888.70 an ounce on Aug. 22, 2011 so they are now down 20.5% from the record settlement.
The decline in gold prices over the past few weeks has “clearly been a washout of the ‘paper gold’ speculators,” said Lundin. “In fact, these speculators are now holding a record level of short positions.”
Analysts Friday said the sharp move downward was accelerated as gold broke through other technical levels. Lundin cautioned that more pain could be in store before a good opportunity to buy gold emerges.
“I am continuing to recommend to my readers that they don’t try to catch a falling knife,” said Lundin. “In fact, the next best opportunity to buy gold may not come until the typical summertime bottom in late July.”
…
The reason for higher gold is simple, fiat money depreciates in price always so in the long term gold will go up compared to the currency. In the short term governments and those that benefit from the fiat currency system can manipulate the price and corrections can happen. However, we are out of cheap gold just like we are out of cheap oil. Oil finds like those of Brazil do exist but we will have a problem turning a profit at even today’s price. Similarly, there are very few new deposits of gold that can be developed at sub $1600 prices.
Try to contain your denial!
COMMODITIES
Updated April 12, 2013, 2:29 p.m. ET
Gold Sinks Into Bear Territory
By CHRISTIAN BERTHELSEN, TATYANA SHUMSKY and GREGORY ZUCKERMAN
Gold tumbled into bear-market territory on Friday, underscoring how money managers’ search for yield has trampled one of the most resilient post-financial crisis wagers.
Over the past decade, the precious metal had attracted legions of investors, first as it became easier to bet on gold with the introduction of exchange-traded funds backed with physical gold, and then as gold notched double-digit gains in 2009 and 2010.
Many gold investors have headed for the exits in pursuit of better returns in the U.S. stock market, where benchmark indexes have hit record highs. Meanwhile, the traditional catalysts for gold prices—inflation worries and financial-market turmoil—have ebbed somewhat, further dimming gold’s appeal.
Friday’s selloff bolstered expectations that 2013 might mark the end of gold’s 12-year bull run. Gold fell $63.30, or 4%, to $1,501 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, after falling as low as $1,480.20 during the day. It was the lowest close since July 2011 and the biggest one-day decline in dollar and percentage terms since February of last year. Gold fell 4.7% for the week.
A bear market is defined roughly as a 20% drop from a recent peak. Gold hit a record of $1,888.70 an ounce in August 2011, a month when jitters about the euro-zone’s debt load were ramping up and Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services yanked the U.S.’s triple-A rating.
Some traders viewed the drop below $1,520 an ounce as an important move because that level provided some support in the past. Friday’s fall turned some traders, such as Stephen Klein, a portfolio manager at New York hedge fund AT Global Capital, into bears. Mr. Klein had spent the past two years on the sidelines. “At this point, it looks like gold has gone over a cliff,” Mr. Klein said. “Gold has always been sentiment-driven, and now the price action shows you that sentiment has changed.”
…
Let the deflationary spiral rage.
…. Deflation…. your wallets best friend.
And the central planners and politicians’ biggest nightmare.
What deflation?
The only deflation I see are houses and wages.
You’re a cool dude eco…… that’s all.
Gold was < 300 / oz for a long time. What do you think it costs to produce an oz of gold these days in the USA?
I don’t think that is the right question, honestly. Just like you can produce oil in the middle east for under $10 even today. The right question is what would it cost to bring on new production and I think there are very few projects that can be brought on line for less than 1600.
However, to directly answer your question this link talks about Barrick’s cost a reasonably well run company: http://beta.fool.com/schirmutzel/2013/04/09/an-outlook-on-gold/29786/
Just think how much gold production costs have increased since gold was $300 an oz and then think how much they will increase in the future. We 12 years and then undergoes a 20% correction and we are suppose to panic?
why so much? Is it the cost of labor? Cost of machinery? Regulation?
All of the above and the fact that we are mining areas with much less gold per ton. We are running out of gold, it is as simple as that. So econ 101, less supply, higher demand (over medium to long term) equals what? I had written call options on my positions, I am now letting them expire worthless and have no intention of writing any until the price of gold or is much higher than today.
I have mined for gold before. I’m for certain I could make a nice profit at 1600 per oz.
Isnt there more gold in the ground than all of the gold found in history to date?
I think in CA the biggest impediment to gold mining are regulations and fees. You have a lot of start up costs to get everyone paid off before you can work.
I think in CA the biggest impediment to gold mining are regulations and fees.
May be there’s no gold in CA.
The industry average cash cost was $542 per ounce in 2010.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41058173
I would note the following; This story is from 2011. The company being discussed has a production cost of $1000.
In another news item from Dec. 2012 the marginal costs was based on S. Africa @ $1200 which points out that S. Africa is the highest cost producer.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/1200-marginal-production-cost-gold-170300761.html
Interesting quote: ” from a supply-and-demand perspective too, most of the gold price increase that you saw over the past 10 years was caused by investment demand growth. And in fact, over the past decade, gold jewelry demand has actually shrunk, so it’s all been driven by the investment demand growth.”
Did you get that? Investment demand… No increase in industrial demand and falling jewelry demand. There is no commodity that is immune to bubbles and that includes precious metals, works of art and housing. I even think there is a bubble right now in guns and ammo.
This is the demand that really matters going forward: http://www.mining.com/chinas-gold-demand-to-beat-supply-by-2015-21778/
As far as gold being a commodity, yes it is true it is a commodity. However, it is a commodity that is constantly being manipulated down by those who want to keep the fiat currency scam going. Consequently, it is never allowed to reach bubble status like it did it the late 70’s early 80’s.
What is the ideal currency? Way back when the world population was only a few billion then it was feasible to have hard money because the ratio of people to ounces was low enough we had things like silver dollars and $20 gold coins. Gold & silver isn’t practical for commerce anymore. Ron Paul thinks our script should be backed by a basket of commodities that would include some energy units, metals and grains. The stuff civilization actually must have to exist. Make sense to me.
In the US? Who cares? The price to produce in Africa? A tiny fraction of the current price of an oz.
Actually the main producer in Africa, AS, has a very high cost of production, Gold mines were shutting down the last few months at 1600+ an oz. The big boys use the MSM to promote a stock just before they dump it and do the opposite just before they buy. What is the MSM saying about gold today?
AS=SA or South Africa.
You don’t need to mine gold anymore. There’s this new thing- paper gold. Course, it’s backed by nothing.
Business
Gold
Cyprus sell-off fears send gold price tumbling
Precious metal slides below $1,500 an ounce for the first time since July 2011 – a ‘make-or-break moment’, analysts say
Larry Elliott, economics editor
The Guardian, Friday 12 April 2013 14.30 EDT
European finance ministers poses during their meeting in Dublin.
European finance ministers pose during their meeting in Dublin - no extra money for Cyprus. Photograph: Cathal McNoughton/Reuters
The price of gold fell to its lowest level in more than 18 months on Friday night amid fears that sales of the precious metal forced on Cyprus by its desperate financial plight would lead to wholesale dumping by hard-pressed countries in the coming months.
At the end of a week dominated by the plight of the troubled Mediterranean island, gold slid below $1500 an ounce for the first time since July 2011 in anticipation that Cyprus would seek to raise €400m (£340m) by offloading a chunk of its reserves.
Share prices also fell on the major European bourses after the gathering of EU finance ministers in Dublin made it clear that there would be no increase to the €10bn earmarked for Cyprus – even though the expected cost of the bailout has been raised by €6bn to €23bn.
A Cyprus government spokesman said the increase would not lead to more money being taken from savers in the country’s banks.
Although both Portugal and Ireland were granted an additional seven years to pay back their loans as a reward for sticking to their austerity programmes, help for Cyprus will be limited to extra investment from Europe’s structural fund.
A spokesman for the German government said the contribution to Cyprus’s bailout would not change despite the deteriorating financial health of the country, but Angela Merkel’s government supported easier terms for Portugal – which tabled fresh measures to save more than €1bn from its budget – and Ireland.
Portugal’s prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, said tentative cuts had been outlined. “We have already presented to our partners some possibilities that will require further work next week when the Troika visits Portugal,” he said. “We have a [bailout] agreement with our partners and we need to stick to it.”
Most major European stock markets saw falls of more than 1%, with weak economic news from the US adding to the downward pressure on gold.
While Cyprus’s gold sale in itself is small, heavily indebted eurozone nations such as Italy and Portugal could also find themselves under increasing pressure to put their bullion reserves to work.
“If Cyprus can break the gold market, then [there are] many reasons to be worried, with Slovenia, Hungary, Portugal, Spain and Italy in line,” Milko Markov, an investment analyst at SK Hart Management, said. “It is a make-or-break moment for gold … if the market can’t handle the reallocation and Cyprus, then there is really a need for a bear market.”
David Owen, chief European economist at investment bank Jefferies, said: “As with Greece, we should not be under any illusion that we have seen the last of the Troika warning about Cyprus’s debt dynamics. The draft EC report [that suggested another €6bn from Cyprus] saw as a worst case scenario Cypriot GDP falling by around 15% in the next two years before output stabilises. However, Greek GDP has now fallen for three years since its bailout, to date by around 20%, with forward looking indicators still pointing down.”
…
Cyprus Central Bank Independence Attacked, Official Says
By Jeff Black - Apr 13, 2013 8:04 AM PT
The governor of Cyprus’s central bank said the government is attacking his institution’s independence at the same time as his family endures death threats from people who lost money in the country’s bailout.
“The independence of the central bank of Cyprus is being attacked at this time,” Panicos Demetriades, who is also a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said in an interview in Dublin yesterday. His ability to manage the situation is being made more difficult by “death threats not only to myself, but toward my children and my wife,” he said.
The central bank is at loggerheads with the government of President Nicos Anastasiades as Cyprus finalizes a 17-billion- euro ($22 billion) bailout agreement that will shrink its banking sector and tax deposits of more than 100,000 euros. Demetriades said the government doesn’t have the right to rescind the appointment of deputy governor Spyros Stavrinakis or sell the nation’s gold reserves without the central bank’s consent.
“The government seems to have committed to a sale of state gold without consulting the central bank,” Demetriades said, adding there has been “constant interference in relation to the management of the banks under resolution.”
…
As an alternative to taking out an eight-year car loan, why not rent your house at a fraction of the monthly costs of owning a comparable place, and use the money you would otherwise have wasted on making a downpayment on an overpriced money pit to buy your cars with cash? This way, you avoid ever handing over a dime to Wall Street in order to own a car free and clear.
why not rent your house at a fraction of the monthly costs of owning a comparable place, and use the money you would otherwise have wasted on making a downpayment on an overpriced money pit to buy your cars with cash?
In CA, that is the only answer. You’d have to have rocks in your head to buy a house here when you can rent it for a mere fraction of the cost of buying.
Iwog & Whac
Rents are pretty darn expensive where we live. We paid cash for a fixer, having our broker beat the tar out of the listing price, and our monthly (taxes, insurance , utilities) is 1/4 of what our rent was. So, it depends. Buying for life and dealing with the market ups and down is the key. This is our third bubble. We’re “seasoned” folks.
Buy and pay it off for old age. People have lost that concept. The move up game and tax law changed the home concept. All my family ages and dies in a mortgage free home.
Rents are a fraction of the cost buying.
What did you pay /sq foot?
pimp
Renting post selling cost us $2,300 mo. No way are we worse off. Not us, maybe others.
Our toe-tag home was a survival purchase for us. Cut our monthly nut in 1/4 for at least 35-40 yrs. It pencils out. Give it up my dear.
And you got suckered on rent too.
What did you pay per square foot
What are you so afraid of?
renting is more than the cost of buying in my hood.
Why not drive an older car and learn how to turn a wrench?
Nothing wrong with that if you don’t mind eating into your blogging time…
my coffee maker broke down again this week. Cuisnart 100.00 machine made overseas. This is the 2nd one that has taken a nosedive.So I called them up and they are sending unit #3 out and then they pick up the old one. I am having k cups today and I’m just not sold on this setup.
my coffee maker broke down again this week.
Have you looked at the stove-top espresso-style pots?
Mine makes good, strong coffee, which I cut back to taste with either hot water or milk (for americano or latte).
The pot is probably 40yrs old, and still going strong. I did have to replace the rubber gasket once, but it took mere seconds (it seals the joint where the two halves screw together).
Sometimes simple is good…
“Why not drive an older car and learn how to turn a wrench?”
In a nutshell, it does NOT impress the ladies.
what if your married? Do you still need to impress the ladies?
In a nutshell, it does NOT impress the ladies.
Back when I was dating, I considered that a FEATURE of my ride; guaranteed to keep the overly status-conscious, social climbers and gold-diggers away.
I am not impressed by ladies who like conspicuous consumption. Driving an old car and turning a wrench now & then filters out the riff-raff.
am not impressed by ladies who like conspicuous consumption.
Are there any other kind?
Are there any other kind?
They are rare birds, but yes—I have an existence proof.
“Are there any other kind?”
Only a blithering idiot would ask such a question, especially given the number of women who post here.
Azdude,
What is your zip and we’ll take a look.
P.S. Back when I was young and poor, I actually did a brake job on the old jalopy I was driving at the time, under the tutelage of a close friend, who most oddly is both a math professor and an amateur mechanic.
I also once installed a garage door opener, and did a few emergency plumbing jobs over my years at homeowners. But now that we are renters, we have landlords to take care of the dirty work for us…
“not rent your house at a fraction of the monthly costs of owning a comparable place, and use the money you would otherwise have wasted on making a downpayment on an overpriced money pit to buy your cars with cash?”
Actually, my sweet bottle of elderberry wine, I did something very much like that. From 2000 - 2007 I rented 1-bed apartment at 1/2 the cost of owning a 1-bed condo* and stashed money in the bank. When it was time to buy a car, I had enough cash to buy my car outright.
However, I only put half down and took out a 3-year loan in order make payments and pump up my FICO. I knew I would need the credit history to get a good rate on a house someday.
————–
*the 1/2 includes condo fee
And you still paid a massively inflated price.
Why? You could have rented the same square footage for half your current costs.
Some people like to own. Oxide, SFHomeowner, and Inchbyinch. The decision is not $. I expect to retire in a few years either in San Fran or New York. The particular buildings I want to live in are coops no renting. So I”ll buy. It will make no difference to mean whether the value doubles or falls by half. I am buying as consumer not investor.
“The decision is not $.”
Thanks for that blatantly obvious observation.
April 13, 2013, 7:38 a.m. EDT
96-month car loans wreck your wallet
Want to be buried in debt? Take out an 8-year car loan
By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch
Don’t be tempted to jump on one of those 75- to 96-month auto loans. Even if it shaves a few bucks off your monthly budget, it could be one of the worst financial decisions you’ll ever make.
“You will be under water on your loan almost as soon as you drive the car off the lot,” says Alec Gutierrez, senior market analyst for Kelley Blue Book. “The longer you extend your terms, the longer it’s going to take to come to a break-even position on your loan.”
Auto lenders have been stretching loan terms due to record high prices. Competition among lenders, even for average to subprime borrowers, is also pushing lenders to offer longer terms. The average new-car loan now is at 65 months, a duration previously unheard of, according to Experian Automotive, an arm of the credit-monitoring and research company. Such loans represented some 17% of new-car loans, the company says, up from 11% in 2009.
More eye-opening is that financing for new cars with terms from 73 months to 84 months — that’s six- and seven-year-plus notes — jumped 19.4% in the fourth quarter of 2012 over the year-ago period. These longer-term loans may be good for household budgets now, but when it’s time to get behind the wheel of a new car, the loan amount left is likely to be greater than the trade-in value. That’s a negative-equity position that could put consumers in a vicious cycle of mounting car payments.
The average age of cars on the road is 11 years, making it seem like an eight-year loan would still leave a few good years left on the car without payments. But by that time, your old automobile will be incredibly difficult to unload at any semblance of a price that can justify all those monthly payments.
Let’s dissect the math. New-car price tags have reached, on average, a whopping $31,000, about $3,000 more than they were just five years ago. If you take out a five-year loan — that’s 60 months — and your credit is at an above-average level, not a subprime level, you’re likely to pay the national going rate of about 2.5% interest on the loan. (Subprime borrowers will face high single- and low double-digits rates, despite this low-interest rate environment.)
Say your down payment is enough to cover the tax, title and license, or in the ballpark of 10% over the total purchase price. That brings the loan value down to about $27,900. Your monthly payment comes out to a little more than $495.
Over the course of the loan, however, you would pay about $1,810 in interest charges, upping the final purchase price to $32,810 for what will be, well, a five-year-old car when you’re finished paying off the loan.
Let’s stretch that loan period out another year, putting it into a 72-month cycle. Because the period is longer, the lender will attach a higher interest rate to cover the risk. Gutierrez estimates it will go to 3.5% for consumers with excellent credit. That will pull your monthly nut down to about $430 but the interest charges will jump to $3,072, upping the total cost for a car that will then be six years old to $34,072.
Adding just one extra year with the higher interest rate tacks on almost $1,300 to the final price.
“You’re lowering the monthly payment at the expense of increasing the overall costs to own that vehicle,” says Gutierrez.
Think that’s bad, here’s what happens when that loan period gets lengthened to 96 months, or eight years. The interest rates gets hiked again, and let’s be nice and say to 5% for those with good credit, and the monthly outlay drops to what for most would be considered a very affordable $353.
That might calculate well on a monthly budget, but over those eight long years, you’d be paying out a jaw-dropping $6,000 in interest. That’s more than a quarter of the total value of the loan and what you have left is a car that is most likely ready to go to pasture.
…
I have to quote Stanley Johnson.
“Somebody help me!”
Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. …
Some people think the Federal reserve banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers, foreign and domestic speculator sand swindlers, and rich and predatory money lenders. …
Those 12 private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon this country by bankers who came here from Europe and who repaid us for our hospitality by undermining our American institutions. Those bankers took money out of this country to finance Japan in a war against Russia.They created a reign of terror in Russia with our money in order to help that war along. They instigated the separate peace between Germany and Russia and thus drove a wedge between the Allies in the World War. …
Every effort has been made by the Federal Reserve Board to conceal its power but the truth is the Federal Reserve Board has usurped the Government of the United States. …
Mr. Chairman, when the Federal reserve act was passed the people of the United States did not perceive that a world system was being set up here which would make the savings of an American school-teacher available to a narcotic-drug vendor in Macao. They did not perceive that the United States was to be lowered to the position of a coolie country which has nothing but raw materials and heavy goods for export. That Russia was destined to supply man power and that this country was to supply financial power to an international superstate–a superstate controlled by International bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.
Congressional Record, 72nd Congress, 1st session, June 10, 1932; Vol. 72, pp. 12595-12603. McFadden served as Chairman of the United States House Committee on Banking and Currency 1920 to 1931.
Few cared about what he had to say 80 years ago & fewer seem to care now. All hail the Bernank!
How awesome can a bubble collapse story get?!
Venture Capital April 11, 2013, 3:11 pm 255 Comments
Never Mind Facebook; Winklevoss Twins Rule in Digital Money
By NATHANIEL POPPER and PETER LATTMAN
The Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler — Olympic rowers, nemeses of Mark Zuckerberg — are laying claim to a new title: bitcoin moguls.
The Winklevii, as they are known, have amassed since last summer what appears to be one of the single largest portfolios of the digital money, whose wild gyrations have Silicon Valley and Wall Street talking. The twins, the first prominent figures in the largely anonymous bitcoin world to publicly disclose a big stake, say they own nearly $11 million worth.
Or at least $11 million as of Thursday morning — when trading was temporarily suspended after the latest and largest flash crash left a single bitcoin worth about $120 and the whole market worth $1.3 billion. At one point, the price had plummeted 60 percent.
To skeptics, the frenzy over the bitcoin network created by anonymous programmers in 2009 looks more like the mania for Dutch tulip bulbs in the 1600s than the beginnings of an actual currency.
“To say highly speculative would be the understatement of the century,” said Steve Hanke, a professor specializing in alternative currencies at Johns Hopkins University.
Whatever else it is, bitcoin has become the financial phenomenon of the moment.
In addition to the identical twins, Silicon Valley investment firms, while not holding bitcoins, are starting to show interest in the technology.
On Thursday, a group of venture capitalists, including Andreessen Horowitz, announced that they were financing a bitcoin-related company, OpenCoin.
There will be a similar Bitcoin system at some point that will be a headache for statists all over the world. It will allow ultimate anonymity so that employers would not necessarily know the physical address of employees. Such as software developers. This will collapse the tax system and free man from men. This could happen in our lifetimes.
Digi-Cash, PGP, address retailers, psuedonyms, all have been discussed and experimented with for the last fifteen years or so. The technology is very near.
Eventually, transportation technology will make international travel far cheaper and individualized so that borders won’t mean anything. Governments all over the world will collapse. Digital currency is just a means to get to competing governments. Gold, silver, platinum, or some other rare metal will Still be the hard currency outlasting digicash and fiat money.
Rental Rates Falling In Phoenix
http://www.zillow.com/local-info/AZ-Phoenix-home-value/r_40326/#metric=mt%3D48%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D5%26rt%3D8%26r%3D40326%252C112345%252C111818%252C112547%26el%3D0
Rental Rates Falling In Phoenix
Humorously, your link actually shows that Phoenix home prices are up 33% year-over-year.
I find this post misleading, as it fails to properly credit the present day central banking establishment for eroding trust in the dollar as a reliable store of value. Without widespread distrust in the dollar, the dollar-value Bitcoin bubble would not have occurred.
April 12, 2013, 4:30 pm
Adam Smith Hates Bitcoin
There have been many good pieces written on the dubious economics of Bitcoin; I especially liked this one by Neil Irwin. One thing I haven’t seen emphasized, however, is the extent to which the whole concept of having to “mine” Bitcoins by expending real resources amounts to a drastic retrogression — a retrogression that Adam Smith would have scorned.
Smith actually wrote eloquently about the fundamental foolishness of relying on gold and silver currency, which — as he pointed out — serve only a symbolic function, yet absorbed real resources in their production, and why it would be smart to replace them with paper currency:
And now here we are in a world of high information technology — and people think it’s smart, nay cutting-edge, to create a sort of virtual currency whose creation requires wasting real resources in a way Adam Smith considered foolish and outmoded in 1776.
Smith actually wrote eloquently about the fundamental foolishness of relying on gold and silver currency, which — as he pointed out — serve only a symbolic function, yet absorbed real resources in their production, and why it would be smart to replace them with paper currency:
Whole lotta silence on that one.
“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order [referring to the 1991 LA Riot]. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond [i.e., an "extraterrestrial" invasion], whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”
Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991
1991?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots
1991?
Good catch.
Henry Kissinger: “Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenarios, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government.”
-Henry Kissinger in an address to the Bilderberg organization meeting at Evian, France, May 21, 1991. Transcribed from a tape recording made by one of the Swiss delegates.
“I can think of no faster way to unite the American people behind George W. Bush than a terrorist attack on an American target overseas. And I believe George W. Bush will quickly unite the American people through his foreign policy.”
-Henry Kissinger on CNBC, December 13, 2000
The Globalist Agenda - Quotes
http://globalistagenda.org/quotes.htm - 51k - Cached - Similar pages
Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991 … in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.
The neocons have been the worst thing to happen to the modern world since the Mandarins.
True, but I also consider Barack Obama a neo-con. Proof: he wants to conserve statism.
According to wikipedia, this is a misattributed quote.
Next?
(What happened to the war on ‘progressives’? Kochtopus executing a pivot to illuminati stuff?)
Again, a little man talking tough from behind the screen. But I am happy for you with all the progress you are making on the GLBT front, you guys have been persecuted for far too long.
Wow, nice string of sophomoric ad hominems. (Asking what happened to the war on progressives is ‘talking tough’?)
Paranoia dragging you down? Better go buy a bunch of guns.
” (Asking what happened to the war on progressives is ‘talking tough’?)”
If you had left out “Kochtopus” I would have let it slide.
I would have let it slide.
Are you required to attack whenever the word ‘kochtopus’ is used? Company rules?
“Are you required to attack whenever the word ‘kochtopus’ is used? Company rules?”
My reply to that is what you would hear when you say below me, real fast. Oh hold on I take that back, I forgot who I was talking to.
Funny how often right-wing homophobes are caught tapping their feet in men’s room stalls.
It almost seems to be a pattern, just like their chronic paranoia.
Is being right-wing just a way for closet cases to deal with their inner demons?
What the hell is tapping feet in men’s room stalls?
Alpo is a G? I thought for sure an L.
Are you guys re-enacting the coffee shop scene from Easy Rider?
Will you always been known as the blog liar?
It’s entirely up to you.
These guys who go on and on about how the deflation of the Great Depression was so terrible some how always manage to overlook the role of the rollicking mania that immediately preceded it. In their vision of economic utopia, the 99% are all debt slaves and only the 1% are savers, who constantly leech interest and surplus production off the debt slave tribe.
Bitcoin is ludicrous, but it tells us something important about the nature of money
Posted by Neil Irwin on April 12, 2013 at 1:03 pm
There was a great piece in the satirical news source The Onion a few years ago in which it “reported” that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke experienced a moment of existential panic during a congressional hearing as he paused, shook his head, and said, “It’s just an illusion . . . Just look at it: meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless.”
…
Once you accept that money truly is an idea rather than a thing, it becomes clearer that there is no single “right” way to run a monetary system. It is merely trying to figure out, through trial and error (and mankind has had plenty of error over our history), what system works best.
Some societies, including this one until 1933, have strictly tied the value of their money to gold or other precious metals. That has some advantages, most notably that a government can’t create more of it from thin air and thus allow inflation to take hold. But it has some significant downsides as well. For one, the government may not be able to create new gold from thin air, but miners can definitely get it out of the ground. And it is a strange state of affairs when the price level of an entire society is allowed to fluctuate based on advances in mining technology or the discovery or non-discovery of new reserves.
All of the advanced nations in modern times instead have a central bank to be in charge of issuing money. The logic is that rather than tie the value of money to some material, instead put some politically independent, sober-minded economists in charge and assign them some goal. In practice, many countries have made that goal “manage the money supply so that prices rise about 2 percent each year, no more, no less). Because these institutions are imbued with the power of the state, the money they issue has the credibility of the entire government behind it.
As Joe Weisenthal wrote Thursday, “the U.S. dollar isn’t just important because other people think it is. The U.S. dollar is important, because the world’s strongest entity, with the full force of the U.S. army, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and various local authorities with guns demands that you pay them in U.S. dollars. That’s not faith. That’s the law.”
So why would somebody want to go and invent bitcoins? There is a certain theoretical elegance to the idea of a borderless currency, with its supply limited by the difficulty of working out very tough mathematical problems. But going back to where we started, money is useful inasmuch as it can be used to buy things. And two massive things stand in the way of bitcoin ever being anything more than a monetary curio. Ironically, both are byproducts of the things that bitcoin enthusiasts most like about it.
First, because it has the endorsement of no government, it will never be usable for official transactions. If you are an American, you will eventually have to pay your taxes, which means getting hold of some dollars, and as long as everyone needs to use dollars, that will be the way the currency in which an overwhelming majority of U.S. transactions occur.
Second, the cap on the supply of bitcoins may reassure people that there will be no inflation, but in fact it ensures that it can never go into widespread use. A currency needs to be elastic — that is, its supply has to rise and fall in order to keep prices stable even as people’s demand for money varies. Part of the reason the Federal Reserve was created a century ago is that the dollar was at that time an inelastic currency, its supply was basically fixed based on how much gold banks had in their vaults. That meant that when harvest season came around in what was then a heavily agricultural nation, there was always a shortage of cash and a spike in interest rates, and in some years a banking panic.
Bitcoin exacerbates that problem. Its supply is capped in the long run. That means that if it ever came under widespread use, demand for bitcoins would rise faster than supply (which is what happened between February and earlier this week), and the price rise rapidly. That may sound good — your money is more valuable! — but in fact it means that prices of goods and services are plummeting. That’s deflation, which as the Great Depression showed us, is not much fun. It is a situation in which everyone has every incentive to hoard money rather than spend it, leading the gears of commerce to grind to a halt.
In effect, bitcoin is a reminder of this fundamental truth: To function in a modern economy, you’re always putting your faith in something, whether you like it or not. And you may not like putting that faith in a powerful, independent central bank imbued with power from the state, but the alternatives may just be a lot worse.
I just can’t get enough of this Bitcoin story. Are they perhaps virtually edible?
For an inflation-proof currency, Bitcoin had quite the rapid buble and collapse!
Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin
An entirely virtual currency is suddenly making waves around the world. Here’s what you need to know.
By Mitchel Hall
April 13, 2013
You may be hearing a lot of chatter about Bitcoin lately and find yourself wondering what exactly it is, does, and means. We at PCMag have been having the exact same internal dialogue, so after combing the farthest corners of the Internet to find out more, we had a conversation with ourselves about what we discovered.
Bitcoin is an open-source P2P digital currency, and a protocol that enables instant peer-to-peer, worldwide payment transactions with low or zero processing fees.
Unlike typical currencies, Bitcoin operates with no central bank or authority; managing transactions and issuing bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. The software is a community-driven, free, open-source project, released under the MIT license. Basically it uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions.
The currency is both highly fungible and untraceable (like cash) and theoretically inflation-proof (like gold).
That’s interesting from a geek perspective, I guess. But why am I constantly hearing about it all over the Twitterverse right now?
Most people are linking the recent spike in Bitcoin interest to the Cypriot government’s recent proposal last month to “tax” (i.e., confiscate) up to 10 percent of every deposit in Cypriot banks in a desperate bid to save its bankrupt financial system. Appropriating customers’ deposits has been off the table since the Great Depression, and Cypriots disabused the government of that plan’s viability quicker than you can say “where’s my pitchfork?”
Wait, I’m not sure I see the link between the two.
Because of its inherent design there’s no way a government can seize bitcoins or make more of them (causing inflation). So if your government or central bank starts acting irresponsibly with its national currency, Bitcoin is a way of avoiding the taxman, arbitrary confiscation, capital-flow restrictions, and the inflation-monster.
That could come in handy in somewhere like Zimbabwe or one of those bankrupt Eurozone countries then.
You catch on quickly.
Sounds like it was invented by some kind of paranoid genius.
You’re right, it does sound like a scenario out of a manga comic. Bitcoin was invented during the deepest, darkest throes of the financial crisis by a shadowy developer (or developers, nobody knows exactly who) going under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Fast Company tried to uncover Nakamoto’s identity in 2011, and discovered circumstantial evidence indicating a link between an encryption patent application (filed on August 15, 2008 by Neal King and Charles Bry of Munich, Germany with New Jersey-based Vladimir Oksman) and the bitcoin.org domain name (registered 72 hours later). The patent application (#20100042841) contained networking and encryption technologies similar to Bitcoin’s. Textual analysis revealed the phrase “…computationally impractical to reverse” was found in both the patent application and bitcoin’s whitepaper. All three inventors explicitly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto. Circumstantial evidence also indicates that Jed McCaleb—a P2P evangelist, eDonkey founder, and founder of MtGox, the first and largest Bitcoin exchange market, could be Nakamoto.
Regardless of his or her true identity, a comprehensive New Yorker article notes that “Nakamoto was very clearly motivated in this effort by the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis…from the first, Bitcoin was devised as a system for removing the possibility of corruption from the issuance and exchange of currency. Or, to put it another way: rather than trusting in governments, central banks, or other third-party institutions to secure the value of the currency and guarantee transactions, Bitcoin would place its trust in mathematics.” Nakamoto outlined his proposal for the crypto-currency in a whitepaper in 2008; the first bitcoin was “mined” in January 2009.
Hold up a second! How on earth do you “mine” a virtual currency?
Mining was a term deliberately chosen because of the way the creation of bitcoins is meant to mimic the act of mining gold, with a finite supply and diminishing returns the longer you mine. Bitcoins are generated at a predetermined rate by an open-source program which runs on a massive peer-to-peer network of 20,000 independent nodes, generally very powerful (and expensive) GPU or ASIC computer systems specifically optimized to compete for new bitcoins. The network will increase the money supply as a geometric series until the total number of bitcoins reaches 21 million bitcoins (BTC).
Bitcoin releases a 25-coin reward to the first node in the network that solves a difficult mathematical problem requiring a certain amount of brute-force computation. Everyone in the network is then notified of the solution, and competition for a new block and its 25-coin reward renews. Currently 25 bitcoins are generated roughly every 10 minutes.
As of March 2013 more than 10.5 million of the total 21 million BTC had been created. Theoretically all bitcoins will be generated by 2140, with the last one consisting of fractional parts. To ensure granularity of the money supply, each BTC unit can be divided down to eight decimal places (a total of 2.1 × 1015 or 2.1 quadrillion units).
Math is hard. I’m getting bored.
How about a kitten?
Ok, I’m happy again. That was a good tactic.
Welcome to the Internet.
…
“Second, the cap on the supply of bitcoins ”
…will kill it off entirely. Here’s what money is: Money is, among other things, LABOR. People will always demand to paid for doing work, let’s say digging ditches. Over the course of history, the absolute amount of ditch digging has never gone down. It has always increased. Since the amount of ditch digging accumulates over time, the money supply has to expand in order to pay for all that ditch digging. So either the supply of bitcoins has to expand linearly, or the value of bitcoins has to increase linearly. Since the supply of bitcoins is fixed, then the diggers will be paid fewer and fewer bitcoins per ditch. This ain’t gonna work. People will get impatient and start bartering rather than get paid in fewer bitcoins.
“Since the supply of bitcoins is fixed, then the diggers will be paid fewer and fewer bitcoins per ditch.”
Not a problem with infinitely divisible currency (unlike indivisible lumpy assets, like houses), as you can always pay smaller and smaller fractions as the value of a fixed supply increases …
“Where do I go for my amnesty?”
Follow this road up about 2 miles and take a right on Elm St. Go about 3 blocks down and just past the McDonalds on the right you will see the Amnesty Depot right next to the Voter Registration, Government Center Building.
Illegal Immigrant Apprehended at Border: ‘Obama’s Gonna Let Me Go’
By Tiffany Gabbay | The Blaze – 20 hrs ago
It seems even illegal immigrants seeking to cross over the U.S.-Mexico border are following the current immigration debate. Linda Vickers, who owns a ranch in Brooks County, Texas, told WOAI that she witnessed one man being arrested on her ranch and that he told the border agent Obama would let him go.
“The Border Patrol agent was loading one man up, and he told the officer in Spanish, ‘Obama’s gonna let me go’,” Vickers said.
Meanwhile, Border Patrol agents report that some immigrants will even ask, “Where do I go for my amnesty?” while they are surrendering.
“When you have amnesty waving in the wind, you’re going to get an increase,” Vickers says. “And when you get an increase, especially with this heat, you’re going to get an increase in deaths.”
http://news.yahoo.com/illegal-immigrant-apprehended-border-obama-gonna-let-180417828.html -
From the Blaze, actually (snicker). I have no idea why yahoo is choosing to link to their questionable stories. I guess they like Drudge’s numbers.
Behind the Green Mask.
01/27/2013
hey, canada! don’t get fooled again! - Democrats Against UN …
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/1/post/2013/01/hey-canada-dont-get-fooled-again.html - 22k - Cached - Similar pages
HEY, CANADA! DON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN! 01/27/2013. 0 Comments. Listen to a Canadian radio interview on UN Agenda 21 in Canada …
Given all the recent crowing about the housing market recovery, this news reads like the sound of a loud fart in church.
MARKETS
Updated April 12, 2013, 5:42 p.m. ET
J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo Struggle
Slump in Home Lending Crimps Revenue as Profits Rise on Cost Cuts; Ominous Sign for Rival Banks
By DAN FITZPATRICK and SHAYNDI RAICE
Earnings season unofficially kicked off in full force as big banks J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo issued first-quarter results. Brendan Conway has details.
A mortgage-refinancing boom that helped fuel a surge in bank profits is fizzling, a sign of worsening health for the financial sector and the U.S. economy.
Two of the nation’s largest banks released first-quarter results on Friday that showed significant slowdowns in their home-loan machines. J.P. Morgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank by assets, said revenue in its most recent quarter fell 4% from the same period a year earlier.
Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest bank, reported a 1.7% revenue drop.
The performances “underscore expectations for a slowing economy over perhaps the next couple of quarters,” said bank analyst Todd Hagerman of Sterne Agee & Leach Inc.
Other economic data released Friday reinforced the worries. U.S. retail sales fell 0.4%, the biggest decline since June, while consumer sentiment slipped despite expectations from economists that it would increase. The producer-price index, a measure of inflation, declined by more than expected in March, while business inventories fell short of expected increases.
The slowdown is weighing on consumers and businesses that otherwise might be more eager to borrow.
“Small businesses remain cautious about the recovery and fiscal uncertainty,” J.P. Morgan Chase Chief Executive James Dimon said in an earnings release Friday, “and are not investing their capital.”
…
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2013/04/12/study-reveals-global-warming-not-to-blame-for-last-years-crippling-drought/
Nice report but I identified la nina as the culprit on this board more than 6 months ago. Of course, I was attacked for it.
Actually, I said that it was the cool water in the pacific while the warm water was in the Atlantic. When they say la nina that is not technically right since while the water was cool in the pacific it did not meet the technical definition of la nina during most of the drought period.
Out of these troubled times, our objective—a new world order—can emerge. Today, that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we have known.
George H. W. Bush, in a speech to a joint session of Congress (1990 Sep 11).
If you’re paying more than $55-60 per square foot for a resale house, you’re paying far too much.
Right, because there are no other considerations in that little formula – everything should just be a pure price per square foot calculation. Detroit or San Francisco… Show me how recently 1800 sq foot houses on prime oceanfront property were going for $90,000…
Materials and labor are the same price in SF as they are in LA, Raleigh, Richmond, Miami, Houston, DC or any of your other fantasy cities.
“Materials and labor are the same price in SF as they are in LA, Raleigh, Richmond, Miami, Houston, DC or any of your other fantasy cities.”
The land is worth more in San Francisco or NY. Have you ever bought a house? You don’t buy a “resale” house separately from the land, it is one transaction for the property, so obviously the average price you pay for a 1800 sq foot house in LA will be more than Alabama.
Plus, in what world is labor the same price in NY city as it is Oklahoma?
No really? Serious?
So that means you don’t perform a detailed estimate so you know precisly how much bad you’re getting ripped off on “land”?
And yes…. M&L is the same, irrespective of location so get over it….. you fraud.
Plus, in what world is labor the same price in NY city as it is Oklahoma?
Do the illegal immigrants make more in NYC than OKC?
You are just making stuff up as you go eh? I’m sure they are a little more expensive, as is everyone else involved in building a house. You think an entire illegal alien crew just shows up and builds a house from scratch.
And materials? Explain to me how all building materials should cost the same in Hawaii, as Alaska or North Texas, regardless of where they are coming from.
We compete, bid and win work in all 48 states my friend.
M&L is the same in ALL 48 states.
Pimple Watch is our version.
And you’re our blog liar.
Carry on.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
“I do not think
And?
Is because the cost of doing business is the same everywhere?
“A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
Audubon magazine, interview with Ted Turner, 1996
——————————————————————————–
“”This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.”"
Jacques Cousteau in an interview with the UNESCO Courier for November 1991
——————————————————————————–
“The world can therefore seize the opportunity [Persian Gulf crisis] to fulfill the long-held promise of a New World Order where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind.”
George Herbert Walker Bush, September 11, 1990 and September 11, 1991
——————————————————————————–
“In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.”
Strobe Talbot, President Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State, as quoted in Time, July 20th, 1992.
National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.
The “best and the brightest” have far better plans for the rest of us.
Once we get to one world government, the central planners can start the process of assigning willing volunteers to fall on their swords.
“Once we get to one world government,”
We are already on our way.
ICLE
Agenda 21
Behind the Green Mask.
is david stockman the real deal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uF9UJh8bU70
Update Newberry volcano
Interesting press release from CVO this evening. While they’re playing this down, it is interesting that there are (and have been) many more earthquakes than they mention in the report (for days now!)! The events plot beneath the most recent vent area,…not where geothermal exploration this past year had triggered earlier activity on the western flank of the volcano. I had been watching these events, but obviously not closely enough!!! I’m sure the deep low-frequency event within the shallower activity got their attention. This is a rhyolitic volcano (so there are few analogs to precursory activity) and the seismicity at Chaiten and more recently at Cordon Caulle began at around 8 km depth!!
Maybe nothing,…maybe something!!! Definitely the most interesting seismicity in the Cascades for a long while!!!
http://earthquake-report.com/2013/04/12/volcano-activity-of-april-12-2013/
Let’s be careful out there.
“If you buy a house at current grossly inflated asking prices of resale housing, you’re going to lose alot of money. ALOT of money. The price declines have resumed. Let prices crater, then buy later for 65% less.”
The price declines have resumed.
I wholeheartedly wish that that were true, but I see no signs of it currently in the available data.
It’s been posted here time and time again. Even today. Yet you seem reticent to look at it.
Why is that?
I replied yesterday and linked to the actual Case-Shiller data; it does not yet show what you claim that it shows.
Sure it does…. and further to the point. CS shows prices still at 2004 levels… an entire 6 years into the bubble.
And we posted below showing falling prices in LA and San Diego.
Your point?
“Realtor charged with living off avails of prostitution”
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/Realtor+charged+with+living+avails+prostitution/8180012/story.html
With housing prices falling like this in Los Angeles, you’d have to have rocks in your head to pay the grossly inflated asking prices.
http://picpaste.com/pics/9e7e2809883a65941f8d5cd17f1e6593.1365876498.png
“They were lying about home sales.”
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=49703
And they’re still lying.
Housing demand has fallen to mid 1990’s levels…. and it’s still falling. Why? Housing prices are massively inflated.
“If you buy a house today, your losses will be so great that you’ll never recover financially.
So why do you keep building?
Debt-Boaster,
Why do you presume they only way to earn profit in contracting is building depreciating houses??
Little history lesson for the week.
Yeah, I know, it is not taught in public schools.
—————
Ku Klux Act passed by Congress (April 20th, 1871)
History Channel via RealClearHistory.com | 04/13/2013 | staff
With passage of the Third Force Act, popularly known as the Ku Klux Act, Congress authorizes President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
Most prominent in counties where the races were relatively balanced, the KKK engaged in terrorist raids against African-Americans and white Republicans at night , employing intimidation, destruction of property, assault, and murder to achieve its aims and influence upcoming elections. In a few Southern states, Republicans organized militia units to break up the Klan.
You should pick up a copy of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”
http://www.historyisaweapon.com
A side note. Have you noticed the History Channel has stooped to covering UFOs, crazy stories about Nostradamus and weird reality shows featuring swamp people, preppers and pawn shops? Are they marketing to a new demographic now?
Few people know that in the rural south, black villagers joined their local Klan clavens to run off Catholic and Yankee interlopers from “up north”. Also as a more populist way of getting justice for local evil doers who tended to get “lost” on the long journeys to the county seat for trial over heinous crimes that had occurred hundreds of miles away and had little to no realistic chance of resulting in justice being served.
Blacks lynched blacks, whites lynched whites, black lynched whites and whites lynched blacks.
Bubble prices too high;
Makes my heart and head reel in grayness;
When I will not be priced out forever?
I am but a dog, barking at the moon.
Hey, good to see you again V! How about an update?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/12/us-creditsuisse-serageldin-plea-idUSBRE93B0SI20130412
Ex-Credit Suisse trader pleads guilty in U.S. mortgage case
Philadelphia abortion clinic horror: Column
Kirsten Powers 8:49 p.m. EDT April 11, 2013
We’ve forgotten what belongs on Page One.
Infant beheadings. Severed baby feet in jars. A child screaming after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure. Haven’t heard about these sickening accusations?
It’s not your fault. Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page. The revolting revelations of Gosnell’s former staff, who have been testifying to what they witnessed and did during late-term abortions, should shock anyone with a heart.
NBC-10 Philadelphia reported that, Stephen Massof, a former Gosnell worker, “described how he snipped the spinal cords of babies, calling it, ‘literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body.” One former worker, Adrienne Moton, testified that Gosnell taught her his “snipping” technique to use on infants born alive.
Massof, who, like other witnesses, has himself pleaded guilty to serious crimes, testified “It would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.” Here is the headline the Associated Press put on a story about his testimony that he saw 100 babies born and then snipped: “Staffer describes chaos at PA abortion clinic.”
“Chaos” isn’t really the story here. Butchering babies that were already born and were older than the state’s 24-week limit for abortions is the story. There is a reason the late Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called this procedure infanticide.
Planned Parenthood recently claimed that the possibility of infants surviving late-term abortions was “highly unusual.” The Gosnell case suggests otherwise.
Regardless of such quibbles, about whether Gosnell was killing the infants one second after they left the womb instead of partially inside or completely inside the womb — as in a routine late-term abortion — is merely a matter of geography. That one is murder and the other is a legal procedure is morally irreconcilable.
A Lexis-Nexis search shows none of the news shows on the three major national television networks has mentioned the Gosnell trial in the last three months. The exception is when Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan hijacked a segment on Meet the Press meant to foment outrage over an anti-abortion rights law in some backward red state.
The Washington Post has not published original reporting on this during the trial and The New York Times saw fit to run one original story on A-17 on the trial’s first day. They’ve been silent ever since, despite headline-worthy testimony.
OUR VIEW: If Plan B goes OTC, common sense suffers
OPPOSING VIEW: ‘Plan B’ contraception ruling correct
COLUMN: No woman should have to wait for Plan B
Let me state the obvious. This should be front page news. When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, there was non-stop media hysteria. The venerable NBC Nightly News’ Brian Williams intoned, “A firestorm of outrage from women after a crude tirade from Rush Limbaugh,” as he teased a segment on the brouhaha. Yet, accusations of babies having their heads severed — a major human rights story if there ever was one — doesn’t make the cut.
You don’t have to oppose abortion rights to find late-term abortion abhorrent or to find the Gosnell trial eminently newsworthy. This is not about being “pro-choice” or “pro-life.” It’s about basic human rights.
The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/04/10/philadelphia-abortion-clinic-horror-column/2072577/ - 29k -
ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization of U.S. cities, towns, and counties working to address climate change, clean energy, and local sustainability. ICLEI USA is the U.S. branch of the international organization of the same name, ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability.[1]
MembershipICLEI includes 1,227 local government members worldwide in 70 countries, with more than 600 in the United States.[1] ICLEI USA membership grew by 58% in 2008[3] and by 25% in 2009.[4] U.S. local government members include cities, towns, and counties of all sizes, from New York City and Los Angeles County to Dubuque, Iowa and Arlington, Texas.[5]
The only requirements for ICLEI membership are a self-defined commitment to climate protection and the payment of annual membership dues based on population size.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICLEI_Local_Governments_for_Sustainability_USA - 57k -
The ICLEI papers we were provided in accord with our FOYI request states: The theme of “social justice”, “the common good” and / or “social equity” is prevalent throughout. At the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements HABITAT I Vancouver 1976 the globalist view of ‘Social Justice’ was defined:
•”Land…cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to SOCIAL INJUSTICE. Public control of land use is therefore indispensable.”
Agenda 21
http://www.10thamendmentfoundation.org/Agenda_21.html - 65k -
Behind the Green Mask
01/27/2013
hey, canada! don’t get fooled again! - Democrats Against UN …
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/1/post/2013/01/hey-canada-dont-get-fooled-again.html - 22k - Cached - Similar pages
HEY, CANADA! DON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN! 01/27/2013. 0 Comments. Listen to a Canadian radio interview on UN Agenda 21 in Canada …
Exposing the Delphi Technique in Public Meetings.mov - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zpA1althjo - 225k - Cached - Similar pages
Sep 14, 2011
The left-wingers are living in your head rent-free.
Check out….. hey, canada! don’t get fooled again!
Watch the whole thing, or even half and then get back to me.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Harvey Rubin, the Vice Chair of ICLEI, proclaimed his vision of a communistic sustainable world in which “Individual rights must take a back seat to the collective
UN Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/49622 - 40k - Cached - Similar pages
Sep 18, 2012
Taking on ICLEI at a City Council Meeting in San Carlos … - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su7i4cH7eYo - 215k - Cached - Similar pages
Jan 31, 2012 …
90% of Foreclosed Properties Held Off the Market
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/07/13/shadow-reo-as-much-as-90-percent-of-foreclosed-properties-are-h/
They’re still there. 20-30 MILLION of them. Disposition: Excess empty inventory.
pssst…… If you think a 20 year old ranch is worth more than $50/sq ft, you’ve been lied to.
… and if you’re paying more than $60/square foot for a resale housing, you’re getting ripped off.